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Colorado Draw System

This may come off as a dumb question, But never really hunting outside of Washington & Idaho, How does the whole draw/point system work for non-resident deer in Colorado? A quick simple version would be much appreciated.

It is a pretty cut and dry system. For every year you put in and do not draw you are awarded 1 point. Units range from undersold every year to 20+ points to draw. Some of the better units require you to have X amount of points before you are in the pool. If you go to www.hunterstrailhead.com they have a draw odds tab that covers all of the western states. This allows you to look at every hunt for every unit in Colorado and see how many points it takes to draw as well as how many people apply for that unit. Colorado Division Of Wildlife also has a statistics tab in the big game page of their website that lets you look at draw odds as well as pref points required for all of the hunts. If you put in for a second choice on your application you will still get your pref point if you draw that instead of your fisrt choice. You have to put up the money for the tags up front, can't by pref points like Wyoming. The majority of the units take between 0 and 3 points. I would start applying now if you want to draw one of the better units because a lot of people are banking points for a trophy unit. You can find plenty of good hunts for deer and elk if you put in for the easier to draw units. Hope that helps.

A bad day in the woods is better than a good day at work.
Shoot the best, Shoot PSE!

Last year Colorado started a "Hybrid Drawing". The new program is intended to give hunters with at least 5 points a chance to hunt in the high demand units. Hunts that require 10 or more points to draw will have 20% of the total tags held for this program/drawing. Yes it takes 5 points to participate, but at least you have a chance now. I've watched one of the premium elk units in the NW part of the state go from 12 pts to 19 pts in 5 or 6 years. At my age (70), I probable would never have enough pts to draw. Around here we call it point creep. I hope it works for me this fall as I have 11 pts for antelope and the unit I want has increased to 14/15.

I know it doesn't help you now, but at least if it's continued every year, you can accumulate enough in 5 years to enter it.

Colorado Cowboy
Cowboy Action Shooter; Endowment Life Member-NRA
The Original Rocket Scientist-Retired
"My Father always considered a walk in the mountains as the equivalent of church going."
Aldous Huxley

It is a pretty cut and dry system. For every year you put in and do not draw you are awarded 1 point. Units range from undersold every year to 20+ points to draw. Some of the better units require you to have X amount of points before you are in the pool. If you go to www.hunterstrailhead.com they have a draw odds tab that covers all of the western states. This allows you to look at every hunt for every unit in Colorado and see how many points it takes to draw as well as how many people apply for that unit. Colorado Division Of Wildlife also has a statistics tab in the big game page of their website that lets you look at draw odds as well as pref points required for all of the hunts. If you put in for a second choice on your application you will still get your pref point if you draw that instead of your fisrt choice. You have to put up the money for the tags up front, can't by pref points like Wyoming. The majority of the units take between 0 and 3 points. I would start applying now if you want to draw one of the better units because a lot of people are banking points for a trophy unit. You can find plenty of good hunts for deer and elk if you put in for the easier to draw units. Hope that helps.

Thanks for the response, Is a pref. point just a point that you have saved up from the year before cause you didnt get drawn? I'm looking at hunting Colorado in the next few years but until then it would be nice to build up some points, Just trying to understand how to do it!

Thanks for the response, Is a pref. point just a point that you have saved up from the year before cause you didnt get drawn? I'm looking at hunting Colorado in the next few years but until then it would be nice to build up some points, Just trying to understand how to do it!

Thanks again

You can apply for a point only in CO. Just make the point only hunt code your first choice. You have to apply at least once in every three year period to keep your points.

The easiest way is to call Colorado Dept of Wildlife @ (303) 297-1192 and ask them to send you a 2012 Big Game booklet...don't believe they are out yet, just got my sheep booklet last week. The application forms are there and all the instructions including the special hunt code for points only.

Colorado Cowboy
Cowboy Action Shooter; Endowment Life Member-NRA
The Original Rocket Scientist-Retired
"My Father always considered a walk in the mountains as the equivalent of church going."
Aldous Huxley

The easiest way is to call Colorado Dept of Wildlife @ (303) 297-1192 and ask them to send you a 2012 Big Game booklet...don't believe they are out yet, just got my sheep booklet last week. The application forms are there and all the instructions including the special hunt code for points only.

Most everything you need can be found right on their website. I've found it to be one of the easier game and fish sites to use. They have tons of info for rookie hunters like me, and they have some really neat hunt unit maps as well.

One thing that is very important about Colorado that I don't think has been mentioned is that it uses a preference point system, not a bonus point, which is VERY important. A preference point system is nice because you can be reasonably sure of when you can draw a tag. For the high point units this isn't as true because of point creep but if you apply in a unit that required 2 points last year and you will have 3 points this year, chances are good that you will draw.